Identify The Root Cause… And Fix It

We are fast approaching the new year and this is that time of the year again where we think about new year’s resolutions and start coming up with lofty ideas about goals that we would probably discard by the end of January. There is something about a new year that gives everyone hope for a fresh start. And that is so true. If you’ve had a bad year, now is the time to start looking on the positive side since a new year means 12 months to straighten things out.

I have a confession to make. I did have a good year this year. It was definitely a lot better than last year which was when I found out about my ex husband’s affair and my dreams as I knew it were shattered. Last year was all about truth discovery and being hurt. This year was all about moving on and rebuilding. But there were still some bad habits that I fell into this year.

I had to validate myself. And I validated myself with guys. The attention I was getting from guys made me feel good about myself. And this was because I always measured myself by my physical attributes. Hence if guys found me attractive, I felt good about myself.

I got into an arrangement with a guy this year. He was a nice guy by all means and treated me well. But he made it clear from the start that he was not looking for a serious long term relationship. I knew I was not ready to be in a relationship either as I needed time to be alone to recover from my failed marriage. Nonetheless our arrangement lasted the whole year but towards the second half of the year, my old insecurities came back. He has a close relationship with a female friend who is younger than me and is attractive. I started feeling insecure about it and started to distance myself emotionally from him. I also felt him distancing himself from me – his texts became almost non existent.

About a month ago, he texted me on a Sunday morning when my daughter was not with me and I went over to his place. I felt relieved that he actually reached out to me. I felt validated again that he still wanted to see me. It is a stupid feeling and I know I have to stop feeling the need to be validated. This is the root cause to me being in bad relationships with people who don’t deserve me.

My new year’s resolution is to ‘fix my picker’. In order to do that, I need to truly love myself and build my boundaries. I need to have dealbreakers and not be afraid to enforce them. I hope I will be strong enough to resist that temptation and that need to be validated should he or any other person from my past or future reach out to me again.

If there is one new year’s resolution you should make, it would be to think through the root cause of your bad situation. A new year is a great opportunity to break free of bad familiar habits and get into new ones. It will be a difficult process especially initially. But once you get through it, I believe that it would be so worth it.